Mémoire Fausse
by anythingbutgrey
Summary: Tess and the nature of memory


Title: Mémoire Fausse ((False Memory))

Rating: PG  
Summary: Tess and the nature of memory  
Spoilers: Through Departure I'd say. Probably more through Baby It's You.  
Feedback: Is my crack btvsroxmysox AT yahoo DOT com or in the comments  
Pairings: None. Vague mentionings of Ava/Zan and Vilandra/Rath  
Written for: The roswell ficathon, for Jenny who wanted Tess of the non-evil variety. This came out. And I thank Jenny to no end for giving me the opportunity to write this. It was a blast.  
Thanks to: Jenny, see above, and Tara for the beta. Thanks love.

* * *

She isn't sure what she remembers. She remembers sky, orange and purple and oh, so beautiful. Everything was beautiful, she remembers, and she knows that sounds cliché but she doesn't care. She remembers mountains and deserts. If asked she could probably describe certain things in great detail, but most are just vague images, colors and feelings—mostly feelings.

He tells her stories. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen and everyone loved her and then it all fell apart and she needed to be saved and she was. The end." Other girls got stories. Fairy tales where everything turned out alright in the end. Happily Ever After.

The original Snow White didn't end happily. Most people don't know that, but she does. The evil witch took iron shoes and heated them with coal until they were red hot and burning. And she made Snow White wear those wedding shoes and she danced and danced—until she dropped. Dead. Most people don't know that fairy tales don't have happy endings. That's a fabrication, something that Disney made up to please the masses. She reminds herself of that and it makes her fairy tale seem more real. After all, there's really very little truth to Happily Ever After.

The difference between his stories, and the stories told to little girls by lamp light by their mothers and fathers, is that his are real. He reminds her of this often.

"You have a mission. A past. You have lived twice. How many can say that?"

He tells her this every night, with each chapter of her life. The one before. He says he knows it because he lived it along side her, and the parts that he wasn't there for were inserted into his mind by technology and powers far beyond the comprehension of humans.

"Humans are weak," he says. "Plagued by emotion. Don't ever accept emotion, Ava," he says. "It will burn you."

At night she dreams of the story. She sees clouds and mountains and beauty. In the morning—every morning—he asks her what she saw, if she saw anything at all.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of," he says. "What did you see?" And she tells him. He nods tersely and murmurs "Excellent." He pats her on the shoulder awkwardly. He is trying, and they both know it. It won't be long before he gives up.

She accepts his courtesy. She revels in any joy she can give him. She is half human, he tells her so, and she can suppress all the emotion she wants but she can't suppress instinct. When she first entered the world he was the first thing she saw, and that automatically imprints him in her brain as a father. She knows he's not much. She can see it when she goes to school, once he lets her. She sees the little girls with ribbons in their hair and Mary Jane's on their feet running out to their fathers. That night, their fathers will tell them stories of love and anguish—but, in the end, love, and their fathers will kiss them goodnight and tuck them into bed. They will dream of princes and flowers and happily ever after, while she is dreaming of things far less tangible.

She isn't sure what's real and what's a dream. She realizes this one day and it scares her. The power of suggestion—how does she know what she dreams and what she remembers? Everything she thinks she remembers feels like a dream, so perhaps it only is a dream. But then she reminds herself that the stories are real, and she gets confused again. She accepts the dreams as reality. For now.

_

* * *

_

She remembers her wedding dress. She can hear the sound of the ruffles as she moves, feel the satin under her hands. She hears instruments playing softly in the distance as she exits her dressing room. Her shoes click against the ground as she grips Vilandra's arm for balance.

"_It will be fine," the princess whispers, as she leads her future queen down the hall._

_Ava nods. She knows it will be fine. She merely wonders what will come after._

_The instruments are growing louder, and she's about to enter the great hall, where her king—no, future husband—waits for her. Her hands are shaking and she feels faint. How does a world react to a new queen? Would they respect her? Or spit at her feet and find her to be awful and cruel?_

_There is a large white carpet that leads her to her king and soon - her husband. The hall goes silent, the music stops. Everyone sits for her, a reminder that she is no one's queen, at least not yet. It is part of her initiation, the wedding, and the fact that all the people remain seated is meant to show where she comes from, a pretty girl with a rich family and the luck of winning the heart of the king. When she leaves they will bow for her and Zan, her king— her husband, and she will smile gracefully at them, completely unafraid._

_First, however, she has to make it through the ceremony. It takes a breath with each step to bring her down the aisle, slowly but surely. Back straight, neck long, don't forget to smile! she repeats to herself as she makes her way along the path. He is watching her. She loves the way he watches her. She thinks this and her breathing comes easier. She loves the way he touches her, she thinks, and her breathing comes easier still. She thinks of all the things she loves about him as she marches towards fate, and it is easier._

_She stops before him and he smiles at her, reaches towards her and squeezes her hand reassuringly. He turns to the alter and offers a dowry to the Gods. Gold and sacrifice lie on the alter before her. They kneel in unison and offer their prayers of thanks and hope and, above all, love. They rise in unison as well. _

_The second in command, and, at the ceremony, the equivalent of best man, hands Zan a knife, a silver blade with a gold handle, covered with jewels of all colors. The king glides it along his palm evenly, not wincing as his blood, green as the envy that will burn her in the next life, seeps out onto his skin. He passes the knife to her, his future wife and queen, and she follows him, hissing as the knife breaks the skin. They press their palms together and the blood drips into a bowl that the priest is holding beneath their hands. The priest prepares a powder, deep red like the sand, and the king and future queen sprinkle it over the offering, saying more prayers and thanks._

_And that is it. **Future** queen no more. Vilandra is beaming next to her. Even Rath allows himself a slight smile, something rare from the general and even more impressive. The people rise and bow to her, a slow blush rising in her cheeks. She is unused to being adored like this. She reaches the door, turns back to the people—her people, as she smiles and waves back at them. She hears the cheers long after the carriage pulls away._

_She is queen._

__

* * *

She asks him about the others one day. She is five—eleven by appearance, but five in truth. She knows about them from the stories, saw the empty pods when she emerged from her own, but she never asked about them. He doesn't like to answer questions. Likes it even less when she asks them.

She has a dream about them, about a grand party and dinner at a long table, and she has to ask. She bites her tongue for most of the morning as he reads the newspaper. Eventually, he notices her silence, too silent for her, and demands she speak. She does not hesitate after that; it was he who brought the question upon himself.

He closes the newspaper to look at her. "What do you remember?"

She tells him of her dream and he nods. "That's when you first spoke with Zan. I told you about it. You remember all of them?"

She nods furiously and he takes a sip of his coffee. "They were sent here. Like you. I—their incubation period was shorter than yours, and I... misjudged when they would exit their pods." He shakes his head softly. "I'm not sure what sped up the incubation process."

"Where are they?" she asks, twirling a blond curl around her finger. "What happened to them?"

"I don't know," he admits angrily. "I searched the area for weeks, but then it was time to move on. I don't know what happened to them. Someday we will find them, Ava. Someday."

Something slow and deadly like dread unfurls in her gut. "How—how do you know they're not in danger? What if they're dead or even worse? We have to find them! Now!" She slaps her hands on the table and he frowns at her.

"Stop this insolence, Ava!" He rises from his seat and glares at her. "I would sense it if they were killed. It was programmed into me when I was chosen to be your protector."

She raises her chin at him, too young for such as defiant action. "And what if they're not dead yet? Just holed up in some government facility somewhere?"

He sits back down and picks up the newspaper. "Go to school Ava," he says, not looking at her. When she turns she smirks lightly.

* * *

It becomes an obsession. She constantly worries about them. What has happened to the princess, bold and beautiful and brave, like her husband, the noble general? And Zan—her Zan, where is he? Are they together, or in opposite corners of the world? Do they even know what they are? Do they have dreams of her and of their home? Does Zan remember her and love her as he did then? 

He tells her she has little to worry about. He has always been searching for them. Everywhere they go he looks for them. He has no other responsibilities other than them, and he will do his job. When they are able to be found he will find them.

She believes him, but she still worries. She doesn't want to live out her life feeling as isolated as this, with only him for company. She makes few friends and they never get close, not with a secret like hers. She needs the others, craves for their friendship.

He is cold to her. As her hair grows longer and her breasts grow bigger he backs away. He comes home every night after she has eaten her dinner. She always makes enough for two, but he never appears until his food is cold and hers already eaten, and then he insists that he already ate. Once she caught him eating what would have been his meal, shortly after she left the room. She wishes he would stop lying to her and just tell her the truth of it all—that he doesn't want to be around her.

Some nights he comes home with blood on his hands. Never actual blood—he's too smart and too cautious for that. She can smell it on him. It smells like power and fire and peppers. On these nights she avoids him, locking herself up in her room with her diary and some marshmallows.

She is seven—thirteen by appearance, but seven in truth, and she has never felt more alone.

* * *

_She remembers a meeting. They all sit in a circular formation, the tables broken up into groups of four seats at each table. She and the others sit together, all attention on them. The princess is next to the queen, on her left, Vilandra's muscles tense and her back straight. Zan sits at Ava's right, a worried expression on his face. The second in command sits at the King's right, his right hand man in so many things. The second has no emotions on his face, but he rarely does. _

"_The rebels are growing stronger your highness," says a small man in the center of the circle. She remembers this man, Landar, governor of the 22nd province. "They have already attacked several of my men." He looks terrified, and this makes him appear even smaller. "I have already doubled my security forces, your highness, and I am merely a governor. Please, my lord, do consider following my lead."_

_The king rises from his seat, and Ava thinks she sees the governor wither slightly. Her husband is kind and wishes for change, but, while these characteristics might relate him as weak, he had a powerful stature and the people respect him and love him. All the people do, except for those few that always exist, until suddenly, in no time at all, it seemed, their numbers began to grow._

"_I will not accept any heightened security for myself," says the king. Landar shrinks even more, bowing slightly to this proclamation. "If any of the noblemen here feel that they are in danger, they are welcome to do as noble Landar has done and increase their security, both for their provinces and themselves. I will not follow suit. This rebellion will be repressed, and I will not induce panic among my people. Increasing my security will only lead to the admission that there is a significant problem, and this, friends, will be stopped." _

_He sits back down and nods to the general on his right. Rath rises silently and begins outlining the plan, as Landar retreats to his seat. The queen brushes her love's hand silently, nothing more than a caress. It goes unnoticed by the rest of the panel._

"_The rebels have chosen a leader, for those of you who are unaware," the general is saying, stealing glances at the princess whenever he can. "Khivar. He is, and I will admit this with great sorrow, smart. Cunning. He will stop at nothing to remove the king from his throne, and with it, bring down this entire world."_

_The princess tenses even more beside her. Ava turns and smiles a small smile, comforting Vilandra. The other woman is pale, her skin white as the satin of the queen's wedding dress that now hangs in her wardrobe. _

_The princess rises and the room freezes. Rath turns to look at her, cutting off his speech mid-sentence. The women are supposed to speak only through the men, even those with power and armies of their own, like Vilandra. Ava watches her as Vilandra looks around the room silently, her hands gripping the table for balance. _

"_I will meet with the rebel leader and negotiate a peace talk." Color slowly returns to Vilandra's countenance once the suggestion is announced. The silence in the room becomes stronger and more pronounced, if such a thing is possible. Nothing moves._

_Rath tilts his head at her. "Princess, while I appreciate your bravery it is not your place too--"_

"_It **is** my place. It is **entirely** my place," Vilandra shoots back, her eyes like fire. "I am the general of armies—**large** armies. I am the princess of this world and I am more than capable of negotiating and taking care of myself. I am no little girl Rath. I want to attempt to negotiate a peace." She surveys the room, her eyes resting on each member of the council in turn, only for a moment. "I am the best negotiator we have. We all know that. Just because this time the enemy is threatening my life instead of those of the people is no reason why I can't meet this—Khivar. He's newly appointed and I want to be the one to meet with him."_

_Rath sighs. Ava has noticed that he is terrible at refusing the princess anything. Vilandra is his one weak link, and Ava briefly wonders if that will be exposed someday. "Alright, Vilandra." The general looks to the others sitting at the table, and turns to the king. "I will allow it. I place the final decision in your hands, your highness, and in the hands of the council."_

_Zan looks at his sister, who is gazing at him with hopeful eyes of youth and bravery. He looks to his queen, not for an answer, but for confidence. He does that often, look to her as a source of strength. There are times when he will whisper to her that she was the best thing to ever happen to him. That she has brought him strength. Sometimes she believes him, but more often she believes that she brought out what was already inside him. She supposes that's basically the same thing._

_Zan rises from his seat. He turns to his sister and nods solemnly. "I wish you luck, dear sister. Bring guards with you, and be careful. You leave in a fortnight."_

_Vilandra nods back at him, and Ava can tell it is taking all Vilandra's strength not to burst into a giant grin. Ava smiles lightly up at her sister-in-law, while a knot begins tieing itself in the queen's stomach._

_She is worried, and she will realize the fortuitous properties of this meeting only when it is too late._

* * *

She changes names everywhere they go. Theresa, Tatiana, Tara, all T's. Nasedo picks them for her, after choosing a name for himself. "Names must go together," he says. "They come in pairs, just like you four do."

She rolls her eyes. She is beginning to believe destiny doesn't exist.

They are in Seattle. He hates it, how it's often gray and rainy, but she loves it. Everything about the city. The sun has never reacted well with her fair skin, for starters. And the smells—it smells like rain. Not in the city itself as much, but where they live, just on the outskirts. It smells like rain and heat.

She likes that she can feel the air. Sometimes, after a heavy downpour, she feels as if she could touch it. If only she were a little stronger, a little quicker, she could hold the air in her hands.

He finds her outside one time, in the backyard where no one can see her. She is grasping for the air, snatching at empty. She lies in a lawn chair, waving her hand around nonchalantly, in a game she always plays with herself when the air is thick like this.

"What are you grabbing at?" he asks, angry at her display of abnormality.

She jumps, surprised. She says she doesn't know. He goes inside without another word. She twirls her finger around aimlessly, twisting sky around her finger.

When they leave Seattle she is furious. They are moving to Utah, and not to a city like Salt Lake City, or a decently sized town either. To Halchita, population roughly 250. She thinks she might die there, with nothing to do and no one around. He tells her they are getting close, that he can sense them. The planets are gravitating into alignment. Every day he senses them more and more. He knows they are in that area.

"Couldn't we move somewhere around there where there are _people_?" she begs desperately. "I might go insane there."

"I don't have time for your petty complaints Ava," he says, struggling not to yell at her. "Pack your things, we leave tomorrow."

She keeps herself from spitting in his face and runs. When he tries to change her name again, she stops him. She wants to chose her own name this time, she says. She's old enough to be able to at least do that.

"Fine," he says, after much deliberation. "Make sure it begins with a T." She never understood why he had a fixation with T's.

She is a 16 year old named Tamara—"spice" in Sanskrit—and she is throwing her own rebellion.

* * *

_It begins and ends with fire._

_She wakes to smoke as it fills her lungs. She hears coughs and discovers they are her own. Her husband awakens almost simultaneously. She shoots up and leaps to the window. The gates to the capital are burning. She gasps and turns back to her husband, who rushes into his clothes._

"_What is happening?" she cries._

_He doesn't pause as he runs out the door. "I don't know."_

_She quickly puts on her robes and follows him down the corridor, down the stairs, to the meeting hall, where Rath and Vilandra are waiting, the first to respond to the attack.  
__  
"It's the rebels," Rath confirms. "Khivar and Nicholas were spotted by a civilian, who rushed to the palace to tell us."_

"_That's impossible," Vilandra sputters. "They wouldn't do that, we—we were making great progress with negotiations!" She holds her head in her hands and collapses into a chair. "Why would he throw everything away?"_

_Rath snaps his head to look at her. "Never trust a madman, Vilandra. You should have remembered that."_

"_What do we do?" Ava asks quietly. She is not a commander, like the others. She doesn't understand military procedure or codes. She understands the desire to survive, and she works with that._

"_Call in the armies," Zan states, pulling a map of the capital out from underneath the table. He begins showing Rath and Vilandra the paths to send their troops while Ava sits and watches the fire out the window. It is growing even larger, the red and orange flames beginning to tease the dirt roads of the city. She hears shouts from her people in the street. They are terrified._

_Her fingers curl into bitter fists as tears start streaking down her cheeks. The people didn't love her, and now people are dying. It is her fault._

_Her husband folds up the map, saying some parting words to his second and his sister. Ava can see fear in all their faces. She never thought she would see that, and it terrifies her even more._

_The door opens with a slam, and the four of them jump. A dozen people rush in, dressed in military garb. Ava is no general, but she knows the armies that protect her and her people, and she knows that these are not people from her armies._

_The rebels._

_Two men stalk in after the rest, as the others take position around the room, their swords at the ready. One of the two locks the door behind them, while the other stands at the edge of the table, circling the three of them who stand in it's center._

"_You know, when I imagined meeting you, your highness, I never thought it would be like this. This easy." He uses "highness" as an insult, the words like fire on the tip of his tongue._

"_And you are?" Zan asks, watching the man circling him like a hawk. _

"_Khivar," Vilandra breathes quietly._

"_This is Khivar?" Rath says, stating more than asking._

_The rebel leader bows, an over exaggerated gesture with a smirk on his face. "And what an honor it is to meet you, general. Vilandra has told me all about you." His eyes flick towards the princess, who looks even paler than Ava has ever seen her. Vilandra grasps Rath's shoulder and she looks like she might be sick._

"_How did you get past my guards," the king inquires, he and Khivar still circling each other, like animals about to attack._

_Khivar laughs. The sound sends shivers down Ava's spine. She's never heard a sound like that before. "Vilandra was kind enough to share how to enter—or exit—the palace unseen. It turns out," he says mockingly. "Your princess is a very... open woman. No wonder she was so beloved by the kingdom." His innuendo is not lost on any of them. Ava gasps and presses against the wall even further than she already has. Zan steps away from his sister, and Rath does the same, jerking Vilandra's hand off of him._

"_Vilandra," Rath says, looking even worse than Vilandra does. "Please tell me he's not saying what I think he's saying." She gapes at him, her mouth opening and closing. "Did you sleep with him?"_

"_Oh, must you be so rude, general?" Khivar barks. "I find it rather rude of you to denounce us as 'sleeping together.' It was so much more than that... Wasn't it, Vilandra?" He turns to the princess. Her eyes are glued to the floor. Ava thinks that even the smallest gust of wind would knock the other woman off her feet._

"_We had an affair," the princess mutters softly. Ava can barely hear her, but she's sure Rath and Zan can hear her easily. Vilandra raises her eyes from the ground. "I'm in love with him!" she cries, flinging herself to the ground, her sobs the only sound in the room. "Please, Gods, don't hate me for loving. Please."  
__  
"The Gods can't help you now," Ava murmurs when Zan and Rath can't seem to speak. Rath can't hiding his emotions like he usually does. His eyes burn like fire and his face is contorted in grief and pain. And betrayal. Betrayal is written all over his face in bold black ink. It frightens Ava. She realizes what has been bottled up inside, and now it is about to explode._

_Khivar is merely watching this scene unfold. Nicholas looks as if he would explode with laughter but he knows Khivar would have his head in an instant. Vilandra sits, hunched over on the ground, her breathing coming in gasps. "Sister, do not hate me as well."_

"_You have betrayed us all, Vilandra," Zan says, his voice absent of any anger. "Ava is--"_

"_I am no sister of yours," Ava finishes for him, rising from her seat against the window. "I will never be a sister of yours, you pig!" She walks to the table and spits at Vilandra's feet._

_The silence is deafening. Ava doesn't think she's ever heard a silence like this. She knows what is coming, they all do._

"_This is all very touching," Nicholas says, speaking up for the first time. "Khivar, let's finish this."_

_Khivar nods, stepping back from the tables. "Kill them all."_

"_Wait!" Vilandra cries. "Khivar—why—why are you doing this? You told me—you promised--"_

_Khivar pulls her to her feet and kisses her lips softly. "I told you when this began that I couldn't give you any promises, love." He pushes her off him roughly and she stumbles backward, tripping over herself to fall to the ground. The other three twitch to move to help her, but then they remember who they are and what she is._

_Ava pushes past Khivar and enters the center of the tables. She stands next her husband, crying. Their fingers are laced together. She brings their hands up to her lips and softly kisses where their hands intertwine. _I don't want to die_, she thinks, as if it were a prayer. From the way Zan looks at her she thinks he heard her, and she wouldn't be surprised if he did._

_Vilandra scurries to her feet. "Khivar, please, do not do this! Not to me, to my family."_

_For a moment Ava thinks she sees regret in the face of the man who is about to become her murderer. _

"_I'm sorry, my lovely Vilandra," he says reaching toward her, though his hand cannot touch her. He is too far away. She closes her eyes as the last of her tears spill down her face. "This is the way it must be." She stands alone in the circle, the other three by each others' sides._

_Joylessly, he murmurs, "By the Gods, just do it."_

_Ava tries not to scream as the sword pierces her torso. As the life rushes out of her she vaguely thinks how the bleeding feels like fire inside of her, burning every bit of Ava out of her body. _

_And that is it. Queen no more._

_The rebels exit quietly, leaving her on the ground, bloodied and broken. Her face a picture of tragedy incarnate._

* * *

She doesn't remember what happens next. Nasedo has told her what happens, and in her minds eye she can picture it.

* * *

The others had been afraid this day would come. They harvested the DNA of the royal four and the DNA of four humans, and created hybrids. They kept the hybrids in the lab for six earth years, until they felt certain that their bodies were stable enough to journey to the blue planet halfway across the universe. The royal four had been unconscious this entire time.

_Ava imagines that Zan and Vilandra's mother cried, watching all that remained of her children being pushed into a ship that might never return. But she couldn't think of that. She had to believe that her children would return to her._

_They were going to land in New Mexico. They didn't know it was New Mexico, of course, how could they? But they knew it was open land and they hoped they would not be spotted._

_But then something happens._

_One by one the plasma generators die out. The power core bursts into flames. They scramble to get the ship to land as smoothly as possible. There is little they can do._

_They crash in the desert of Roswell, New Mexico. They are captured by the government, along with the two sets of the royal four. The humans know they are there. They must protect the four._

_Flames from the crash damaged the ship . It would take a vast amount of repair work to fix it, and this disgusting planet doesn't house the supplies they need. Their only way home is destroyed by fire and impact, and they are on the run._

__

* * *

She wakes up from her dream in a cold sweat. She feels her abdomen, as if making sure that she's still whole, not some dead Raggedy Ann doll lying on the floor. She stumbles out of bed, and when she opens her door she finds him standing at there about to knock.

"We're leaving," he says, not even wincing at the surprise of seeing her open the door.

"Where are we going?" she asks, tired, and not just from her sudden awakening.

"Roswell."

"That's where this all started," she points out. "You took ten years of searching to end up right back where we started." She would find this incredibly humorous if not—no, she does find this incredibly humorous. He looks as if he would slap her if he could.

"Start packing. Your name is Tess, you leave in two hours. You begin school today." He spins on his heels and starts toward his room down the hall.

"I want to pick my own name!" she cries after him. Her only response is the door slamming behind him.

In the car, two hours later, she asks him what Tess means. She always likes to know what her names mean. It gets her more in character, as if putting on a different name changes anything else about her.

"'To Harvest.'" He replies, turning onto the highway. "That's one of the meanings, anyway. You are going to gather the other three, and soon you will go home. You are about to meet your destiny Ava. I suggest preparing yourself. We can't shock them into this, they may not know about the book, about themselves."

Ava gapes at him, her fears nearly realized. "You—you mean they may not remember? Who we are, what we are? They might not remember... me?"

He shakes his head. She sits back in her seat, dread rising within her.

Dread is all pretense. It never prepares you for what actually occurs, unless the dread is completely unfounded. This is not unfounded, and what Ava finds when she enters the gates of Roswell High is unlike anything she could have imagined, even in her nightmares.

He is in love. Her Zan. He is in head-over-heels-I-love-you-forever love with a simple human girl. She and Ava are nearly direct opposites. The human has cheekbones, and her near jet black hair works nicely with her rich tan. Her eyes are brown to Ava's blue. The other girl's eyes are dark and secretive, while Ava's are blue and open.

The human girl's name is Elizabeth Parker, and Ava hates her even before she sees her.

The others are in no less of a state of denial. Rath loves a girl who resembles Ava physically, but no emotional similarities exist at all. Vilandra is alone, but Ava can see the fringes of something emerging from her with a male friend of hers. Their relationship smells like sugar and medicine, sweet denial.

Ava cares little for their petty teenage romances until she sees them around the ones they "love." Then she begins to worry. No matter, she reminds herself, they will come around in time.

Her heart is pounding every moment for the first week she is in Roswell. She is so close. She can see them, smell them, touch them ever so slightly if she wants to. Her breath catches in her lungs. She believes in destiny again, from the moment she sees Zan and knows exactly who he is before Nasedo can tell her.

He is called Max here. The X catches in her throat, the K and S blending together to create a hard soft sound. His name is a paradox, much like his life here and the one before. 

She has dreams every night as the planets drift closer and closer into alignment. Sexual dreams of her and Zan. They bring a blush to her cheeks as Nasedo asks her every morning what she dreamed about. Nothing to be ashamed of. He sees her blushing, smiles, and pushes the orange juice towards her.

* * *

The following months bring change. Everything changes. She watches as the fear in Liz's eyes turns to hatred, cold fury. Tess watches herself grow into a family.

Nasedo is gone. His death feels like both a relief and a burden. Her father is dead, though terrible excuse for a father he was. He is gone, and she becomes Tess. She can feel Ava slipping away. She understands how the other three could have lived without knowing their past selves, when it is this easy to hide from it.

And Max—the name comes easier now. She never slips up and calls him Zan, nor does she have to stop herself from calling out to him as often. She does it automatically. There are still times when she sees him in the hallways at school, at the Crashdown, in the quad, where she wants to shout out to him, call him to her, make him remember, and she needs to stop herself. But normally now it is just a passing thought.

He comes to her with a question. A favor to ask of her. He wants to remember more, and he wants Tess to help him.

"Our world's out there, Max," she tells him when they are at the observatory. He is having the dreams too, as she tells him the stories, and he doubts if they are real or not. They are the same like that. "It's not close, and sometimes it seems like a dream to me, too, but it's real, and I know you know that too."

It's not a slap in the face. Her realization comes not in any forceful way, but as a slight change in the direction of the wind. It slithers into her like smoke.

She realizes it when he forces into her that night, in the observatory, the cold floor beneath her and the sky above her. She finds that frighteningly ironic. She sees flashes of her, some of Liz—that was expected, but some of Tess and she is beyond thankful for that. He is thinking of her in some regard as he caresses her with his lips.

She sees flashes of his memories of them before. But they are not like her memories, even though they are of the same event. The exact same events that she told him of. She tells herself that a different being brings a different perspective, and nothing more, as she drifts off to sleep. However, there are differences in the stories, very slight ones, the color of her dress, a gesture, a look. In Max's memories Rath is vaguely similar to the man he will become in the next life, smiling often enough, but never truly smiling. In Max's memories Rath loves fully, but has trouble showing it.

Tess's memories are different. Rath is chillingly indifferent to all things but Vilandra, and his love for Vilandra is all too clear. He never smiles, and while he does have trouble showing his love for Vilandra, the entire kingdom can see she has made him feel something and it shows. While slight in comparison to most people's emotions, his feelings are apparent to most people as well.

They were together, lived the same, died the same, and she and her destined have different memories.

Nothing is the same for her after that. She goes to the pod chamber and stares at the book for hours, as if it will tell her something. It has to prove to her that what she remembers is real, because if it doesn't she doesn't think she'll survive.

The book says nothing to her, and she feels something inside of her coming loose.

She wakes every morning to nausea as her pregnancy progresses. She knows that she has to go home—her real home, but she can't bring them with her. Her dreams have blurred with a past reality, and the line between the two ideas, dream and reality, is disappearing. She can't bring them with her to a past she forced them to remember.

Her memories seem too much like dreams, and she's beginning to think she just made it all up. Maybe Nasedo's detailed stories conjured up a canvas for her imagination to paint on. Her head is spinning as she sits on the pod chamber floor. She choses to say the baby is the cause, because it's easier that way. Easier than saying that it was all in her head. All in her head, nothing else.

In the end she truly remembers nothing. She has dreams and unreadable text to go on. She will make sure the others don't follow her through the river Styx, but that is where she must go.

She will find a way.


End file.
